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Anna Wintour is facing renewed criticism over her decades of influence at the Metropolitan Museum's Costume Institute after John Galliano withdrew from a planned retrospective of his work, prompting the museum to cancel the exhibition entirely.
Galliano announced the decision himself in an Instagram post Monday morning, saying he did not want controversy over his past remarks to overshadow the Costume Institute's work.
"After much reflection and discussion with all those involved, I have decided, with great sadness, that it is best for the exhibition not to take place at this time," he wrote, adding that he recognized "an exhibition my work would be painful for some."
Wintour issued her own statement backing Galliano's exit. "John's decision that the exhibition devoted to his work should not take place at this time is very courageous and a measure of the man he is," she said.
"I believe this is the right decision, and both he and the Museum have my full support." The Met said plans for a new exhibition and gala would be announced later.
For 31 years, Wintour has presided over the Costume Institute's annual exhibition and the accompanying Met Gala, the fundraising event that has become one of fashion's most closely watched nights.
Her influence extends well beyond the museum: as Vogue's longtime editor and a senior figure at Condé Nast, the publisher that also owns Vanity Fair, GQ and The New Yorker, Wintour has helped raise hundreds of millions of dollars for the Costume Institute, which was renamed in her honor in 2014.
That authority is now being tested. The Galliano withdrawal marks the first time an honoree has stepped back from a planned exhibition, and the first time an announced Costume Institute theme has been canceled.
Only two living designers, Yves Saint Laurent in 1983 and Rei Kawakubo in 2017, have previously been honored with retrospectives while still working; Galliano was to be the third, a plan widely understood to amplify Wintour's personal backing of him.
The proposal to honor Galliano, the former creative director of Dior and Maison Margiela who now works with Zara, had drawn objections since it was announced this summer. Galliano was fired from Dior in 2011 after video surfaced showing him, visibly intoxicated, directing antisemitic and racist remarks at people in a Paris bar, including expressing admiration for Hitler and telling those present their relatives should have been killed.
Galliano has since apologized publicly, including in the 2024 documentary "High and Low: John Galliano," and has spent years engaging with Jewish community leaders. The Costume Institute had said the exhibition would address the 2011 episode directly, but the plan drew skepticism from some donors and critics who questioned whether a celebratory retrospective was capable of examining the controversy with adequate seriousness.
New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani's office criticized the museum's original decision to honor Galliano. A spokesperson told the New York Times that Galliano's "repeated use of antisemitic language is vile" and that the honor had "caused pain and anger among many Jewish New Yorkers," while acknowledging the Met's independence as an institution. "Independence does not mean insulation from criticism," the statement said.
The exhibition controversy compounded separate criticism directed at Wintour over this year's gala, for which she selected Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez Bezos as co-chairs and sponsors, reportedly for $10 million. Posters calling for a boycott of the event appeared around New York, targeting the couple over displays of wealth including their Venice wedding and a $40 million Amazon-produced documentary about Melania Trump, with critics accusing them of using the sponsorship to buy standing in fashion circles.
The combined fallout has fueled speculation about whether Wintour, who has held her position through changes in ownership and repeated industry upheaval over nearly four decades, might eventually step back from her role. "She's used to being called an 'ice queen,'" one unnamed source in New York's fashion industry said, "but not to this level of bitter backlash."
Neither Wintour nor Galliano has indicated any further changes to their roles beyond the statements issued Monday.
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